mrspock@hubcap.UUCP (Steve Benz) (10/11/87)
In their adds, Microport claims that their Unix runs at amazing, breakneck speeds. That statement is followed by an asterisk which refers to the eensy-weensy print at the bottom which says that that's true when you use this mysterious (at least it is to me) Greenhills C compiler. I know one thing, the compiler shipped with regular uPort Unix rates fairly low in my book. As I remember, when I ran the Drystone benchmark, I got a figure of ~1800 on my 10MHz, 1 Wait state, "intel pseudo-computer." (I can't re-run the test because my hard disk recently went to its reward, and its replacement is in transit.) The best part about those benchmarks is that there was practically no difference with or without the optomizer. Nor was there any change with or without registers. I then broke out Microsoft C (vs 3.0, I don't use it anymore, so I never bothered to get 4.0, let alone 5.0) and with everything turned on, I got 2500 Drystones. That's quite a margin, I'd hate to think what version 5.0 would do to that figure. It's not any surprise to hear that the compiler provided with UNIX doesn't stack up well against commercial products. What I would like to know is where is this Greenhills C compiler? How much does it cost? Is it really that much better? Does it compile any faster? Is it fully UNIX System V-definition-of-C compatible?